So much changed for safety Knyair Crumb in a year. Last spring ended and he was not thinking about college football. He was wondering about which high school he would play at, so college was not on his radar.
Now, the Hyattsville (Md.) DeMatha standout will head to either the SEC, the Big Ten or the ACC to play college football.
The finalists are Auburn, Penn State, Syracuse and Virginia Tech, and Crumb will announce his decision Wednesday at 6 p.m. ET on the CBS Sports College Football YouTube channel.
“Last year, I was in the position of not even having a school to call home,” said Crumb, whose lone official visit was to Auburn. “Transferring to a public school, a lot of people thought I would get lost in the mix. It just so happened I wound up at DeMatha, and that was a very good thing for me.”
Crumb was at Towson (Md.) Calvert Hall for his first two years of high school. He left after his sophomore season and enrolled at Millersville (Md.) Severn Run in the winter but was not on a team. He worked out on the side but did not participate in football workouts because he was deciding on where he would spend his junior year.
He looked at national powerhouse Baltimore St. Frances, which is where friend and former Calvert Hall teammate (and current Indiana defensive back) Byron Baldwin Jr. played. However, Crumb settled on DeMatha, with no promises of starting but with the idea he could earn a spot if he proved it in practice.
Going through that process was not easy, Crumb said, but it served as a precursor for his college recruitment and decision.
Crumb did not get on the radar of most schools until the winter. The offers started pouring in then as Auburn and Virginia Tech were among the more than a dozen schools to offer.
Penn State offered Feb. 17 and Auburn followed through with one Feb. 26. Virginia Tech offered the next day, but the outlier was Syracuse.
The Orange offered in January 2024, but it had an inside track into his talent. Syracuse coach Fran Brown played junior college football with Crumb’s father.
As Crumb went through the process of finding a high school, he used a similar template to pick a college.
“The relationship aspect of not only my position coach but the whole coaching staff (was important),” he said. “There are times when you have to pivot from your position coach and maybe to the head coach.
“Maybe have great relationship with the quarterbacks coach. Just the coaching staff as a whole, I wanted to have a great relationship with them.”
At DeMatha, he proved his worth quickly and was a key member of the secondary. He finished with 42 tackles and intercepted seven passes.
“It is a great spot for me,” Crumb said. “Coach (Bill) McGregor had endless resources in which he was able to help me out.”
